40+ vintage movements for sale! If only I knew something about fixing watches...

During my swims in the Bay, I found this: a box with 40 vintage movements for sale! I would buy it, if I knew something about fixing watches. Maybe somebody can find it interesting... You have Camy, Roamer, Omega, etc...

Just for the record, I've nothing to do with the seller. I just found the listing amazing...

Re: 40+ vintage movements for sale! If only I knew something about fixing watches...

It is interesting. I've purchased more than a few items from Israel, the shipping is always high, of course. It would be a good parts resource, but I find personally I have a devil of a time trying to find cases for movts like this. You wouldn't think it would be hard to do, but it is. I have boxes of hundreds of vintage cases, and it is rare that I find any that fit what I'm looking for.

Re: 40+ vintage movements for sale! If only I knew something about fixing watches...

Originally Posted by Outta Time

It is interesting. I've purchased more than a few items from Israel, the shipping is always high, of course. It would be a good parts resource, but I find personally I have a devil of a time trying to find cases for movts like this. You wouldn't think it would be hard to do, but it is. I have boxes of hundreds of vintage cases, and it is rare that I find any that fit what I'm looking for.

Omega isn't too hard. Look at all the frankens - sadly for collectors, a lot of their parts interchange.

Re: 40+ vintage movements for sale! If only I knew something about fixing watches...

Hi -

Normally putting a For-Sale post with a link to eBay on it is a good way to get the post deleted, but I'll let this one stay.

This is basically what is called a "job lot." These are invariably from a watchmaker who is cleaning house and throwing junk away. Well, one man's junk is another man's resource these days: however, it is a lot of work to take these apart, clean the parts, categorize them and find a way of storing them such that they can be easily found when needed. Usually, that's an apprentice job, to learn how to disassemble, clean and take care of watch parts, to learn what they are and what they do, and to gain experience in knowing what to keep and what not to keep.

Back when watchmakers were pretty much on their own, that's how things worked: nowadays, where watchmakers have access to the internet as well (and you can find pretty much any watch part you need online, new, without that much effort), it makes little sense to have someone work dozens of hours to build up a large number of parts that will probably never be used. Hence watchmakers have tended to simply either dump their bad movements (the ones cannibalized and hence not running) or try to turn them into a small amount of money.

Me, I bought a job lot of Gruen women's watch movements, about 35 of them in working order (and around 50 all-told) about 3 years ago for $35. Great to practice on as they are soooo small: once you've worked on these, working on a 2824 is easy-peasy.

Re: 40+ vintage movements for sale! If only I knew something about fixing watches...

Originally Posted by tintasuja

So, this could be a good thing for me to start learning about movements?

Well, yes but:

Some of them are lacking crowns and possibly winding stems so they'd be no use to learn on.

There are too many. You'd probably learn just as much from playing with 5 or 6.

Consider a smaller batch of complete 'spares or repair' watches - that way if you got one or two working you'd be able to enjoy the results. As Outta Time says, getting movements and cases to marry up is astonishingly difficult.